A crucial aspect of the Roosia/Ukraine dustup that should obviously be driven home with a nine-pound hammer, but somehow hasn’t been to date.
It’s almost three weeks into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as this is being written, although, according to The Irish Times, to hear the United Nations tell it, it’s neither an “invasion” nor a “war.”
“Use ‘conflict’ or ‘military offensive’ and NOT ‘war’ or ‘invasion’ when referring to the situation in Ukraine,” the director of the UN Regional Information Centre instructed staffers via email. “Do NOT add the Ukrainian flag to personal or official social media accounts or websites.”
At first, the UN Spokesperson Twitter account tweeted that report was fake. Then they deleted the tweet. Another UN official said the email was real but not official policy. A later email “suggests the language policy regarding Ukraine was updated to reverse the initial guidance and allow for the use of ‘war’ and ‘invasion’.”
Now that we’ve got that settled…
The above example is a microcosm of the state of information (misinformation, disinformation, and real information) coming from both sides of the wa… uh … conflict, compounded by the same quality of information coming from observer countries with their own agendas. From this, Americans are deriving their assessments of credibility colored by their own confirmation biases, and in some cases, we’re seeing examples of cognitive dissonance that flat-out conflict with positions they’ve taken before.
That includes from the “right” as well as the “left,” and what that’s doing is diverting attention away from the one now-undeniable truth that destroys the “gun control” narrative: An armed populace is essential to a nation’s security. Citizen disarmament works to the advantage of a nation’s enemies.
So, instead of relentlessly hammering that point to where it cannot be ignored by that part of the electorate still receptive to reason, some “conservatives” are dividing into camps and descending into squabbles, with no small amount of name-calling, accusations, and vitriol.
Later in the piece Correia casually tosses in an aside that caught my eye. I’ll boldface the part I found interesting:
EDITOR’S NOTE: There have been many inaccurate reports that President Zelenskyy gave Ukraine a 2nd Amendment and just ordered the military pass out machine guns to the public, this is not the case. Any citizen who wants to join the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces must show a passport and/or other form of Ukrainian identification, take an oath, and immediately undergo military training. At that time, they will be issued a firearm (registered to them) which is most likely an AK-74 rifle. These Ukrainian citizens are then considered to be Ukrainian military. There have been no changes to Ukrainian gun laws since the invasion at the time of this writing.
An AK-74, is it? Seems a bit odd; the ’74 is nothing like as ubiquitous as its bigger, older brother. It’s chambered in the 5.45×39mm round, something of an odd duck compared to the venerable and available-everywhere 7.62×39mm the ’47 rouna. Makes me wonder if it might not have been a typo. Anyhoo.
Codrea goes on at some length from there, deftly making several other key points along the way. Well worth a look, I’d say.
- Entries
The AK-74 replaced the -47 a long time ago and I believe it is used in most of the former Soviet nations now. From what I can tell the 7.62×39 is mostly used by third world types using old guns and Americans.
10 4 as usual combloc copied the west with a round more like the 556.
Yep… the Rooskies did the same thing we did, primarily for weight reduction:
An AK-74 mag, fully loaded:(bakelite/plastic) 30-rounds 5.45x39mm, 1.215 lbs per mag (Literally HALF the weight of the original ribbed metal mag of the infamous AK)
An AK-47 mag, fully loaded:(metal): 7.62x39mm, 30-rounds 2.019 lbs per mag
An AK-47 mag, fully loaded:(AKM bakelite) 7.62x39mm: 30-rounds 1.806 lb per mag
An AK-103 mag, fully loaded:(last 7.62x39mm Variant, plastic): 30-rounds 1.629 lbs per mag
The 5.45x39mm round also performs very similarly to the 5.56x45mm that the US DotMil uses. Better cavitation (bullet ‘tumble’) and superior wounding characteristics. The 7.62x39mm is a beast and has a lot of ‘punch’ but over longer ranges, the 5.45x39mm is the superior cartridge.